Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Today is Take a Kid to Work Day. I’d like to recognize my daughter Cheyenne Lafferty who is here with us, my shadow, and her friend Alex McLean here with us as well. I’d also like to recognize, of course, Eddie Erasmus and Joline Huskey. They’re part of the Water Strategy team. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Summary Conviction Procedures Act, be read for the first time. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi. If there is such an education symposium being conducted in the Sahtu region by Sahtu residents, then if there’s an invitation, I’m certainly willing to attend, but there are other sources of funding that those individual students can certainly access. There’s INAC funding, there’s upgrading funding that’s available, but this is an upgrading program that the Member is referring to, Mr. Speaker, not a college or university program. With our SFA program, we solely contribute towards post-secondary students. So, Mr. Speaker, those are the areas that we continue to focus on and I’m willing...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Our policy currently states that we do sponsor post-secondary students, students that are off to university or colleges, but I think the Member is alluding to upgrading. We need to be very careful on what we do here, because it would have a huge impact in the local district education authorities, and not only that, the divisional education council, because our funding is based on enrolment and provided to those organizations. If we start sponsoring students down south, there’s a number of students that are on a waiting list and we’re not just talking about one student. Just...

Mahsi. The training program that’s been delivered through Aurora College has been ongoing for a number of years now and it has been very successful to date. We produce so many early childhood workers out of that. When I quoted, the number was based on 2008-2009, 55 successful course completions by students from 14 different communities. That’s just one year. This particular program has been ongoing and certainly there’s always been room for improvement in the program. There’s an accreditation program attached to this, as well, and we’re also partnered up with other institutions and southern...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the Early Childhood Program, there have been some changes to benefit the communities that we service. Part of the ongoing initiative, the ongoing improvement of the program is the last two years, April 1, 2007, there has been an increase in the contribution, so that can offset or allow operators to increase staff wages and improve benefits for early childhood staff. So those are the areas where there have been some changes. Also, since 2007-2008, the department assists eligible providers with basic rent or mortgage expenses. Those are new initiatives that...

Mr. Speaker, our department is open to any discussion that will certainly benefit all the communities of the Northwest Territories. This particular area, we have to involve the RCMP “G” Division in any discussion that is focused on enforcement or foot patrol, because they’re the ones who have the liability in that area, and also the agreements that we have in place with them through the federal contribution. So any meeting that needs to take place is not only the municipalities but also the RCMP “G” Division needs to be involved in those areas. So we’ll continue to work in that dialogue. Mahsi...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This is one area that certainly was addressed at last week’s FPT meeting that I attended in Fredericton. Out of that meeting, the three territorial Ministers did discuss a strategy with the federal government to increase policing in the remote communities such as the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and also Nunavut. Out of that there is a plan in place which I’ll be sharing with the Members.

There is also a plan in place by the federal government, Mr. Speaker, a community officer program. There’s a pilot project for our jurisdiction and we are certainly looking forward to...

Mr. Speaker, the on-call duty officer can certainly assist those clientele whenever a client service officer is not available due to whether it be vacation or on sick leave. So those areas and the filing system is also taken care of. There is strictly a confidentiality that every client service officer respects and takes into consideration. So whenever there’s a client that’s calling into the receptionist, the receptionist should provide assistance, support, and also the phone numbers of certain individuals that they can contact. I do believe that they should provide those services. If not...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly we deal with a number of clientele within the Northwest Territories and specifically for larger centres such as Yellowknife, we do have individuals that, whether they be a receptionist or a secretary at the front desk, should be able to assist clients whenever they approach the office, assisting them to connect to client service officers. They are certainly there to assist. There are certain hours of the day that they operate under, because it is under the federal building within the hours of operation. Those individuals should be there to assist with the...